Modern WisdomIt’s time to rethink your entire life plan - Dave Evans
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
110 min read · 21,957 words- 0:00 – 5:30
How to Find Out What You Actually Want in Life
- CWChris Williamson
You're the co-founder of Stanford's Life Design Lab.
- DEDave Evans
True.
- CWChris Williamson
What's that?
- DEDave Evans
It's a little, tiny operation inside the design program that applies the innovation principles of design thinking to the wicked problem of designing your life at and after university. So, oh, Bill and Dave realized we've made all these products and all these different experiences using design thinking, started at Stanford back in 1963, you know, and we used it at Apple in the early days, and everybody's- it's kind of the thing that built Silicon Valley. Hey, we could apply it to ourselves. We could design ourselves as well, you know, and that's a real problem people have, and we gave it a try, and it seems to have worked out.
- CWChris Williamson
Do people not already try to design their life? Is that not what you do when you set a to-do list or have a calendar?
- DEDave Evans
So, [clears throat] the word design in the field of design really means there's two categories. There's what I would call craft design or engineering design, and then there's design thinking, and so the, the older school, you know, so I'm an ergonomist, you know, I'm a, I'm a car designer, I'm a graphic designer, you know, I'm an illustrator. So designing things, precisely figuring out exactly what this particular shape and look of something is going to be, has been around for a long, long, long, long time. You can get a master's in design at Stanford and still not be very good at drawing, and there are many design schools who think that's a moral wrong. Then there's this design thinking idea that's been around only for the past fifty years, um, which is an innovation methodology. It's an approach to coming up with new ideas. And so when we talk-- when people start, "I wanna, I wanna design my life," what they're really saying is, "I want to engineer my life. I want to, I want to figure it out, I wanna solve it, I wanna answer it, I wanna craft it," and that's a perfectly good thing to do. Uh, we're not saying that's the wrong thing to do. Um, so people have been trying to do that for a long, long time. What they've not been necessarily doing very well and, and they're getting stuck on is, is finding their way. So, like, uh, I walk into the career center when I'm nineteen years old, back in the '70s, and I kinda-- and I go, "Can, can you help me?" And they go, "Well, sure, we got a whole building full of people. We love helping young people like you, you know? So what do you want to do?" I kinda go, "Yep, that's the question." They kinda go, "Okay, so what's the answer?" I kinda, "No, that's the question." And they go, "What?" I said, "What do I wanna do?" And they go, "Right, what do you wanna do?" I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this conversation is going nowhere." And they said, "We have to-- Here's how this works. You tell us what you want, then we'll help you go get it." And I go, "That's easy. Getting stuff is easy."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DEDave Evans
"The hard part is figuring out what you want." They kinda go, "Well-
- CWChris Williamson
That's... Just on that point-
- DEDave Evans
You're supposed to know.
- CWChris Williamson
Getting stuff is easy.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Figuring out what you want to get-
- DEDave Evans
Yes
- CWChris Williamson
... is the difficult part.
- DEDave Evans
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
A hundred percent.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah. So that's, that's what we help people do. So the, the, the objective of the Life Design Lab, you asked that question, is we assist people in the formation of a conscious competency in life and vocational way-finding.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, what-
- DEDave Evans
How do you find your way?
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-huh.
- DEDave Evans
We give you tools to do it. Life is an improv skit. We're improv trainers.
- CWChris Williamson
Orienteering for your life direction.
- DEDave Evans
Bingo.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DEDave Evans
There's maps and compasses. When there-- We make the big distinction between navigation and way-finding, technical terms in design. So in navigation, I know where I am, I know where I'm going, I have the data about the space in between. It's what your GPS does really well. I can optimize the path, preferably as straight as possible. In wicked problems, where I don't know what I'm looking for until I find it, and I'm going to this very important place called the future, about which we have no data because it doesn't exist yet, I can't do that, 'cause I barely know where I am, and I sure don't know where I'm going.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
And I don't have any data about the space in between. So what am I gonna do? Well, I'm gonna do an empirical thing called try it. We call it prototyping. So I'm gonna make this move. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go talk to Chris and see how that goes. You know, then what did I learn that day? Um, [clears throat] and then, you know, I'll go here, and then I'll go over here. A very jagged pathway. I might go backward. I might have to start over again. Seems terribly inefficient, except I'm learning my way forward till I'm finally like, "Oh, that's it," and then the destination I'm looking for finally appears, and I land there. But that boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing thing, very not a straight line. In a way-finding task, that bouncy line is literally the shortest distance between those two points because that's what mortals have to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DEDave Evans
You know, it's interesting, but it's inefficient.
- 5:30 – 15:34
What Does Meaning Really Mean?
- CWChris Williamson
What do people mean when they're talking about meaning, do you think?
- DEDave Evans
[inhales] That's a big one. Um, [clears throat] well, the reason we wrote this book, um, to, you know, get fairly direct, is that what overwhelmingly people mean when they talk to us about the meaning they're not getting enough of, is they're talking about one of two things.... primarily they're talking about having an impact, and I'm just, I'm just, I- am I making a difference? Am I changing the world? Do I matter? Is it working? You know, did I make the impact that would make my life worthwhile?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
And so the, the, for I'd say 90% of the people we've been talking to recently, that motivated us to write this book, uh, the one and only valid form of meaning-making they've named is impact. And then right behind that would be fulfillment. I'm just not being fulfilled, and for most people, fulfillment means, am I getting to manifest the fullness of who I really am? Because that's what Maslow told them fulfillment was. In the original 1943 paper that invented the hierarchy of needs, according to Abraham Maslow, the apex was, um, self-actualization, and you attain self-actualization by literally becoming all that one can be. And if you become all that one can be, according to Maslow, you will experience fulfillment. Um, and we think that's dead wrong because we've known for a long time in the Life Design Lab that all of us contain far more aliveness than one lifetime permits us to live out. There's more than one of you in there. That's the good news. So if you've decided you have to be all that you are, and all that you are won't even fit in one lifetime, and if I haven't fully manifested everything that I could possibly be-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DEDave Evans
... then my life is unfulfilling. I just have decided to have a policy that I have to be despondent for the rest of my life. That's a bad choice. So both the people who are stuck on impact as the only way meaning really deserves to work or I have to be entirely manifested to be fulfilled, both of those people are set up on dead ends, and we'd like to give them a better idea.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the better idea?
- DEDave Evans
Better idea is, you know, to the... So the reframe on impact is, you know, if you put all your meaning eggs in the impact basket, impact's a good thing. I've worked hard at making an impact. You're working on an impact. It's not worthless by any means, but it's also largely out of our control because some of the other eight billion people might go off script when you're not looking. You know, you do everything right, it may not work. Doing it right is not anywhere near enough to pull it off. So impact is, is a bet, and frankly, after you make the impact, even successfully, three, two, one, "Well, what have you done for us lately?" The half-life on impact is short.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you ever seen, uh, Scottie Scheffler's interview when he won the PGA Masters Tour? It's from last year.
- DEDave Evans
No, but what did he have to say?
- CWChris Williamson
So he basically sits down and has this room of press, and he's just won the thing.
- DEDave Evans
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
He's won the big thing that he's been working towards.
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
The special jacket or the, the-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah, the green jacket. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Whatever it is. And, uh, he basically spends seven minutes talking about how fleeting and hollow this experience is.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And it's, it's just phenomenal. It's one of the best things that, that I've seen in a very long time, and I'm kind of obsessed with the price that high performers pay to be somebody that everyone else admires.
- DEDave Evans
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And to see someone using the opportunity to fillet-
- DEDave Evans
At the apex.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, to fillet himself, he could have done that quite happily-
- DEDave Evans
Sure
- CWChris Williamson
... for five minutes, and no one would have thought otherwise. He could have called out... I mean, I remember that, um, Michael Jordan, he got inducted-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... into the Hall of Fame 1993, and he uses the entire speech just to call out all of the people that have insulted him. There's no gratitude at all. And then Scottie does something similar. There's a degree of gratitude, but it's very sanguine, it's very self-deprecating, and you would, you, you-- I'll send you it once we're finished.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You'll absolutely love it. But he, he basically says the same thing. He says, "You know, you-
- DEDave Evans
It's not enough
- 15:34 – 21:05
How Do We Make Sense of Life’s Changes?
- CWChris Williamson
That menopause that happens to guys toward the end of their twenties, I first saw it in the way that me and my friends trained fitness.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and then it became everything, the way that we thought about our contribution to our friend group, and the way that we thought about money or girls or family life-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... or whatever. Um, something that has struck me there is the fact that getting beyond forty ancestrally would have been increasingly rare.
- DEDave Evans
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
And-
- DEDave Evans
Death was more popular.
- CWChris Williamson
Well-
- DEDave Evans
More frequent. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Well, that, well, that suggests we can say popular.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, what that suggests is that this, these challenges that we're facing were not only mismatched evolutionarily-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... for the modern environment, even durationally-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... we are mismatched-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... for our current environment.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And y- you can talk about an aging population and birth rate decline, and blah, blah, blah. You can go into that stuff.
- DEDave Evans
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
But I think what's more interesting is that the, uh, adaptive systems that we have, even culturally, myth, archetype, like, what does it mean? W- w- I-- if, if it's such a rarefied strata to get into fifty, sixty, seventy years old-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... where there's just not been a big enough sample size of people from history to be able to explain what that transition actually looks like. Does that make sense?
- DEDave Evans
Sure, but I think what it really means is, I mean, people made those transitions in their mid-late thirties to early forties before, because they're gonna die at fifty.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
Um, and now just the window of time during which that transition can occur has stretched.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, and shifted.
- DEDave Evans
And shifted. And so what's happening is people are doubling down. You know, so, uh, William Bridges wrote the book, Transitions: Making Life-- Making Sense of Life's Big Changes. So he posits years ago, it's, it's an eighties self-help classic, it's a good book, um, based on Erikson's work, that, um, uh, changes are outside-in realities that happen to you. Transitions are the internal experience of managing them. And his observation was that transitions are three steps, not two. It's not an ending followed by a new beginning. It's an ending, followed by the neutral zone, followed by... So, you know, it's over, then you're lost, and then you get refound. But you go, you don't go from found to found.
- 21:05 – 22:43
Reframing Fulfilment to Fully Enjoy Life
- CWChris Williamson
That's impact. What about the reframe on fulfillment?
- DEDave Evans
Okay, so fulfillment, I can be fully alive, which is again back to be fully alive in the present moment, even with its apparent insufficiency of particularity. And it's just-- I mean, this is w- uh, my, this is actually my first can of Neutonic.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- DEDave Evans
I think it's the best one I've ever had.
- CWChris Williamson
Fantastic.
- DEDave Evans
You know?
- CWChris Williamson
It-
- DEDave Evans
And is it the best, you know, caffeinated drink on the surface of the Earth?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- DEDave Evans
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you
- DEDave Evans
... so far.
- CWChris Williamson
Good.
- DEDave Evans
So far.
- CWChris Williamson
Good.
- DEDave Evans
So am I willing, am I willing to say, "Ah," you know, not quite, or am I willing to say, "I'm, I'm really enjoying this," and let it be what it is and not, not blame it for what it's not yet?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So that, that's where we're fully alive comes back in, and there are practices that allow us to do that. And so, uh, uh, most of what the book is really about is positing, look, there's the transactional world where all this performance is occurring, and there's a flow world, whic- which is happening right now. Do you have access to the kinds of behaviors, the kind of awareness, the kind of attention in this present moment, what I call the flow world, that will allow you to experience life more deeply? Because more aliveness feels more meaningful, it feels more human. I think what we're ultimately called to be is more human. Joseph Campbell said in an interview years ago on PBS, you know, on the meaning question, like, "Is it really meaning, or is what we're really after just the true rapture of being alive?" At the end of the day, you have to decide, is the human person fundamentally just a production engine, I equal what I did, or a living being, and what I equaled was the life I lived?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- DEDave Evans
So your, your, your decision about what it means to be a person is a pretty big decision.
- 22:43 – 28:41
Are We Confusing Meaning With Feeling More Alive?
- CWChris Williamson
Can you put meaning into an evolutionary lens for me, please? How is meaning adaptive? What is it-
- DEDave Evans
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... ancestrally? Give me that lens, if you can.
- DEDave Evans
Um, I'm winging it 'cause that's not first and foremost where I go. What I-- You know, I'm, I'm a realist. I live in reality. I notice people think the meaning thing is pretty important, so I'm just gonna start there. Why might meaning have been important? Well, that's actually gonna depend a little bit on your cosmology. Right. I happen to be the the- the theist on the team. My partner, Bill, is the Nietzsche-appreciating existential atheist, so you're gonna get a different answer. But I think gen- even evolutionarily, um, if in fact that which is energizing evolution at all, there's some trajectory here, um, and that collaboration and community and persistence sustain that, then let's keep it interesting, not just keep it viral. So I can move along, and so if I can lean-- if, if there's something in me that wants to lean more deeply into my own life and le- le- lean more deeply into our collective life, then that's gonna keep the community going, and the community's gonna keep the genome going.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah, the, uh, good. It's a alignment of a bunch of different prosocial macronutrients-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... that are both internal and sort of kin-based, the-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... just around you, Dunbar number stuff. So-... Is it your perspective, to try and summarize where we've got to so far?
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The problem that people are trying to actually solve when they say they want more meaning-
- DEDave Evans
Yes
- CWChris Williamson
-is they want more aliveness? They want to feel more alive?
- DEDave Evans
[inhales] Almost. I'm, I'm suggesting that if we added more aliveness to the definition of meaning-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
-and then give tools to acquire that-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- DEDave Evans
-then their access to meaning is gonna go up.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- DEDave Evans
That right now, people, you know, it's like your food groups. I mean, if you've got-- I've got, I've got one food group called Impact, and we're suggesting, how about five?
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- DEDave Evans
Impact, wonder, flow, coherence, and community.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So if I've got more food groups, I might get more calories.
- CWChris Williamson
What about fulfillment in that-- fulfillment being broken out into some of those other component parts?
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Right, okay. Understood.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's ways different aspects of my humanity are being both experienced, grown, and expressed.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, contributing elements of meaning-
- DEDave Evans
Yep
- 28:41 – 39:31
Has Optimisation Killed the Magic of Meaning?
- CWChris Williamson
What's the difference between that problem-solving world and the meaning-making world?
- DEDave Evans
Okay, well, there's still meaning in the problem-solving world, it's just, it's just a narrow, a narrow form of it. So [clears throat] we came up with this model of the transactional world and the flow world, and that there's a bunch of meaning to be had in the flow world, simply because... Look, there's only one real world. There aren't two worlds, but your brain can't handle the whole thing at one time. And we now know neurologically, you know, Lisa Miller's work at Columbia, there's your achieving brain and there's your awakened brain. You know, the, the much more sophisticated version of the left brain, right brain model. You know, Jill Bolte Taylor's, My Stroke of Insight, what happened when this neurologist actually lost her left brain for a while. So what's going on is we're trying to integrate these things and give people access to it. And so if I, if I can move more into a, a fuller implementation of my entire consciousness, then my chance at living a richer life goes up. And so [clears throat] the, the flow world simply means I want to start making sure that the part of my consciousness that can experience other aspects of reality is getting airtime, because when that part of my awareness gets more airtime, there are experiences available to me right in front of me for free, that currently are going wasted. Which, so we're saying, it's not about more, it's to get-- we are trying to invite people to get more out of the life they're in, not cram more into it to change it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- DEDave Evans
Now, we wrote two books about how to make big changes. We're in favor of changing things and making them better, but along the way, don't forget to live the life you're in.
- CWChris Williamson
... w- so with that perspective, does optimi- o- optimization or over-optimization drain life of meaning in some ways?
- DEDave Evans
I think it can. I think w- if we're, if we're always simply trying to get to the better thing, most people's degree of happiness is described by the delta, the gap between the way things are and what they had in mind. When that gap is small, it's working. When that gap is broad, it's not. So that means I've just decided the quality of my life is based on an imaginal idea that I have.
- CWChris Williamson
You can either bring your expectations down or increase your performance.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah, I mean, p- people land, you know, um, there's two phrases: good enough is, and good enough isn't. Most people have a bias. They tend to be one of those kinds of persons.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- DEDave Evans
The truth is, they're both true. Just pick carefully when you apply them. So I'm all about high performance. You know, get better. Learn how to do things. Listen to Huberman, listen to Chris Williamson, [chuckles] you know, um, but if I fall all the way into that thing, then my aware-- my experience in my own life is always simply trying to narrow the gap.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
And then as soon as I get it close, it's time to up my game and push that asymptote further out again so that I have more gap and push myself forward. I mean, you can never ultimately maximize your productivity.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a beautiful line from Alan Watts. He says, "If we are all together unduly absorbed with improving our lives, we may forget to live them."
- DEDave Evans
You missed the whole thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep. Yeah, this provisional life, uh-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... the, the, um, arrival fallacy.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah. There, look, there is no done, there is no right, and there is no it. H- have I found it? There's no it.
- CWChris Williamson
I think about the, the most modern example of this that keeps me-- this is my memento mori, but for the-
- DEDave Evans
Okay
- CWChris Williamson
... TikTok generation.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, one day you'll die, and your inbox will still accumulate emails. Like, that will never be done.
- DEDave Evans
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There will be people emailing you-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... asking why you're not replying or secretly saying to a friend-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... that you were really rude because you hadn't replied, who don't know that you're dead.
- DEDave Evans
You're-
- 39:31 – 42:52
The Surprising Power of Wonder
- CWChris Williamson
so okay, okay.
- DEDave Evans
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
The component parts: wonder. What do we need to know about wonder?
- DEDave Evans
Okay, so wonder, [clears throat] and we have a little equation for that. So when you take curiosity, curiosity is a very good thing. It's a mindset we're in favor of, you know, and you upgrade it [clears throat] by applying-- you direct curiosity toward mystery, those things that are beyond our understanding or since transcended at the moment in time. Curiosity plus mystery, so I'm now gonna lean with a high availability into a mystery, allows wonder to occur. And one-- the reason wonder is important, so wonder, awe, even positive overwhelm. So Dr. Keltner, a prophet, UC Berkeley, has written the book on awe and eight different forms of human experience that allow awe or wonder to occur. So he's quadrupled down on this thing and that it works across all cultures and all different spiritual traditions. Um, it's a fundamentally human experience that people report as making themselves feel more alive and making themselves, themselves feel more like themselves and making themselves feel more like a part of this great, wonderful thing. So very often, in an intense experience of wonder, whether it's a communal thing at a concert, whether it's a sunset, whether it's noticing the sleeping baby at three in the morning, you know, suddenly like, "Oh, and we are all in-- it's all one fabric, and we're all in this thing together," and the universality of it all suddenly breaks through.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So wonder enables that to occur. It's a profoundly human-making experience, you know. So-- and we think that's available all the time. You know, you gave a quote just a minute ago. Um, I love this particular quote from Henry Miller. So the American author and playwright Henry Miller once said, quote: "I have a theory that the moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. I have tried this experiment a thousand times, and I have never been disappointed." So, you know, that's the, that's the habit of wonder. So, [clears throat] so wonder is the place where we can move beyond ourselves, which, by the way, goes back to Maslow. So late in his life, Masl-- and most people still think that the apex of the hierarchy of needs, according to Maslow, is self-actualization. It's not. The highest level is actually self-transcendency, which he came up with very late in his life. He never published it. It's in his personal journal notes.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DEDave Evans
Others published it behind him. But interestingly enough, still, you know, eight out of ten people think it stops at self-actualization. And self-transcendency, if attained, creates meaning-making, so there's a difference. And he's still wrong because he made it hierarchical, and it turns out self-transcendency isn't hierarchical. You don't have to be self-actualized to get there. Self-transcendency can work for anyone, anywhere, anytime. Just get beyond yourself, whether it's loving other people, whether it's being selfless-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DEDave Evans
... whether it's compassion, whether it's noticing beauty and allowing it to overwhelm you, all those things get you beyond yourself. And wonder is a place where you go beyond yourself.
- CWChris Williamson
Or else, if that wasn't true, looking up at the night sky wouldn't be impressive unless you'd maximized your potential first.
- DEDave Evans
... exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Doing something-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... for somebody else-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... that makes you feel good and-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- CWChris Williamson
-the world a better place wouldn't be pro-social.
- DEDave Evans
Wouldn't work.
- CWChris Williamson
And-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... well, but you know you-
- DEDave Evans
You have not yet earned the right to notice.
- CWChris Williamson
As of yet, you haven't maximized your 401 (k) .
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And that means that you don't get-
- DEDave Evans
You, you're not, you-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Scott Barry, Scott Barry Kaufman did a good, a good job on that in his book, Transcend.
- DEDave Evans
Yes.
- 42:52 – 47:03
The Best Ways to Inject Wonder into Life
- CWChris Williamson
into Maslow's stuff. Okay.
- DEDave Evans
Okay, that's wonder.
- CWChris Williamson
Engineer me some wonder. What, what are some practices for how I can bring more of it into my life? I'm paying attention-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... to things in a manner to look at them with a fresh set of eyes?
- DEDave Evans
Yeah. So we have a little exercise called Put on Your Wonder Glasses. So put on your wonder glasses. First of all, y- you know, if you can't beat it, join it. So we recognize that we're transactionally minded, and so we take a situation and, you know, might be a little challenging here in the studio, but, um, you know, you, you take a moment, and you just take a look around the room-- take a look around your situation, take a look around your room, whether whatever, you're outside, you're inside, you're walking the dog, and you take a quick look with your normal glasses on. And the first thing you'll notice is what the transactional brain is gonna be looking for. Like, "Oh, okay, this is, they're using a certain kind of soundproofing, and it's the blue lights. That's kind of interesting."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm, mm, mm.
- DEDave Evans
You know, and I see what's going on. You know, and probably what'll happen is you'll immediately come up with a to-do list. Like, you know, "Oh, I got to get one of those blue lights. You know, that's a better, that's a better mic holder than I've got, you know, and I wonder if that plant deserves to be watered." You know, so your, your brain just comes up with a to-do list. So first, you scan around the room, scan around the scene, and let your brain do what it naturally does. And then you say, "Thank you. Thank you for sharing. I'll make that list. I'll get back to you another time." Then you take another look and say: Is there anything here that is interesting, right, that allows me to be curious? You know, you know, [clears throat] and, and I'll notice, and, well, well, he's got a plant there. He's got a, you know, wh- why is there-- why do we need a plant, you know? Um, and then, [clears throat] and, and, and I might notice something, something else might be interesting, like, you know, the fact that we have all these different cameras, and why are these angles important? And that might be curious to me. You know, and then I'll say, "Okay, now it's time for wonder glasses. Which of those curious things do I want to really lean into and let the mystery reveal itself?" And I'm gonna go with a plant. Now, is it real or plastic, by the way?
- CWChris Williamson
Plastic.
- DEDave Evans
It's plastic, okay. So it's a plastic plant, but it's a good plastic plant. So what I'm noticing then is, so Chris is having these conversations with people, and there is a little organic something in the room.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
And so what that's, uh... This is maybe an homage to, maybe it's, maybe it's, um, evoking the fact that, you know, we're-- it's not just digital, it's not just electronic, it's not just black. Um, there's some life in here, too, and that, that reminder of life is rem-- So how do reminders of life occur in my... So I allow myself to fall to, to-- in any moment in time, there's a way I can, in a minute or two-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DEDave Evans
... reopen my availability to the fact that there's something, that like Henry Miller was saying, that's indescribably mysterious and wonderful right in front of me if I let it be.
- CWChris Williamson
If you were to-
- DEDave Evans
It takes practice.
- CWChris Williamson
If you were to try and turn up the-- turn down the difficulty and turn up the external, uh, supply of wonder-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... what are some reliable ways to do that? You mentioned sunsets earlier on.
- DEDave Evans
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
I imagine that's one.
- DEDave Evans
The natural world is gonna be your friend. You know, if, you identify the things that are naturally working for you. The other thing is way of when, is, is just allow yourself to notice the existence of the flow world. You know, 'cause that's where wonder is gonna be available to you, which means dropping into the present moment. So having-- so we have an exercise called flip the switch. You know, so you're sitting, you know, in a staff meeting, you know, and you're listening to the budget be hacked a- apart again, and you're bored, you know, and then literally, y- you say to yourself, "Flip!" Boom, flip the switch. What's happening in the flow world right now? So I'm in this room, I'm with these people. How is Chris actually feeling right now? You know, um, what, uh, I look out, "Oh, oh, there's a tree out the window, and that tree is turning colors." You know, and this all costs maybe three or four seconds.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So I can get the habit of calling myself back to the present moment and just noticing what's going on around me and the fact that I'm, I'm a living person in this present situation. I mean, if I let myself, while I'm thinking about answering your question, I can be aware of how the cushion feels on my buttocks-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
- DEDave Evans
... because I'm actually sitting. I'm, I'm not just talking to you, I'm sitting in this chair.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DEDave Evans
Am I actually in this room? So those awarenesses allow the mental faculties, the part of your brain that knows how to be attentive to the present moment, catch those things. So you just constantly have these little games you can play with yourself, which is keeping yourself in the game.
- 47:03 – 50:46
Does Coherence Create Purpose?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, coherence.
- DEDave Evans
Coherence. It turns out the meaning-making researchers, uh, will tell us that if you can align consciously who you are, what you're doing, [clears throat] and what you believe in, which we call coherence-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So, you know, I understand who I, at least presently, I've got a story about who I am. These are things I really care about. Here's what I'm doing in the world. Do they align? And when they align, usually with some degree of compromise, 'cause life is never perfect, but as a, a calculated compromise that I've accepted, um, I'm having an experience of coherency. I'm being an, an integrated, you know, coherent, thoughtful, authentic person in the world, which means I'm living purposefully. Frankly, if the book takes a risk, it's that we don't talk an awful lot about finding purpose and mission and what have you, in part because people are so over-missioned right now that they're stuck in the transactional world.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DEDave Evans
We're really deferring almost all of that hopefulness to this coherency thing. If people are aware of their value set, and they're aware of what they're doing in the world, and they're trying to move those things into alignment, called coherency, you know, then we're pretty sure they're gonna end up doing good things. Um, so I don't need to preach at you about trying to make the world a better place. The overwhelming majority of people we work with, they've got great values, and if their values actually get to be the lead horse on the directing of their lives, we're all gonna be in a better place. So I don't need to tell you what to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
You've already got what you need. So-... the experience of coherency, we call it coherency sightings. Catch yourself in the act of being an integrated, coherent person, that's really gratifying. Oh, I'm s- I'm sitting here in your studio, and we're talking about how people can live more meaningfully. That is a really coherent thing for me to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
Am I aware of the fact that, oh, yeah, this is exactly what I wanna be doing. This is really working for me.
- CWChris Williamson
Inverting, what would somebody being out of coherence look like?
- DEDave Evans
Oh, uh, um, I was just talking to a guy the other day. So I'm, um, so one of the DCI fellows, you know, a very successful Hong Kong financier, you know, uh, calls me and says, "My 26-year-old son is about to quit his fabulous job. Please help me stop him." [chuckles] You know? So I, I said, "No, I'm not gonna help stop him, and I'm not gonna call him 'cause you said call him, but if he wants to call me, we can chat, and by the way, I'll probably tell him he's doing the right thing, so watch what you wish for." So I'm on the phone [clears throat] on a Zoom call talking to this 26-year-old young man, um, who is a Stanford grad in economics with a master's in computer science, 'cause everybody should know digital stuff. Um, and he drops right into investment banking, and he's killing it. He's absolutely killing it, and he's having a great time killing it until suddenly he wakes up one day and he's bored to tears. "And so I think I'm gonna quit, um, and, you know, ruin my career and, and travel for a while and go try to find myself." You know, because what he noticed was, right... And, and I think what's happening for him is his neocortex is forming about 27. He's a little ahead of himself.
- CWChris Williamson
Menopause.
- DEDave Evans
And menop- and just like, "Wait a minute, the motivation I had to do this," which was growing and winning, which is fine, you know, getting A's, he was getting A's at the bank like he got at Stanford, um, "suddenly doesn't work for me anymore." He's, he, he, he awakened an incoherent person.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
And he tried to talk himself into success as its own reward, and he just couldn't do it. So for him to become coherent, he's gonna have to go recalibrate his values and repri- recalibrate his priorities. So he's in a transition. That's the right thing to do. Now, there are other people who keep re-upping that incoherence because they're getting the money, or they're fearful of the change, or their wife will think they're stupid.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
You know, there's lots of reasons people get stuck in an incoherent place, but it's soul-sucking, so be careful.
- 50:46 – 52:32
Can You Be Both Balanced and Coherent?
- CWChris Williamson
How does coherence outperform balance as a life goal?
- DEDave Evans
Oh, well, I've never had balance as a goal. Um, I've never seen a balanced person. I mean, if balance means, you know, um, all of my allocation of time and energy precisely reflects my value prioritization set, you know, the, the, the perfect layering of the layer cake of my life looks just like my values at all times. I've never li- I've never had that moment.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So we don't-- we, we don't... W- we talk about, uh, you know, not balance as much as just, uh, um, the dashboard of what is your current portfolio? What's, what's the mix of your life? So, um, balance is a resource allocation question, and so, you know, um, so you have to decide what your priorities are gonna be. Um, one of my examples is one of my older sisters, uh, ran a graduate school of, um, uh, in education at a small private college, and she'd been doing a PhD's job for fifteen years and finally decided it was time to get the PhD and actually be the person she was supposed to be. So she's working full-time, running a graduate school while going full-time to school, getting a PhD, and she called her friends and said, "I'm a little overbooked. Um, I've calculated I have six unscheduled hours in the next five years," I have very little... True story. "I have very little time to talk to anybody. You're not making the cut." I didn't make the cut. Um, and, um, and that was a radically imbalanced lifestyle, and it was exactly the right coherent thing for her to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Highly coherent.
- DEDave Evans
Highly coherent.
- CWChris Williamson
Highly coherent.
- DEDave Evans
So balance is lovely-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DEDave Evans
... and if a coherent life and circumstances permit it, great. Um, but what you really wanna be is alive and a- and accepting the compromises that come with it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- 52:32 – 57:06
The Secret to Finding Your Flow State
- CWChris Williamson
Flow. What about flow?
- DEDave Evans
So flow. So first of all, we are introducing the concept of the flow world along with the flow state. So we all know the flow state from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the, the positive psychologist who invented the term flow, the psychology of optimal experience, published back in ninety something. Um, and that's lovely as an idea in the zone, what have you. Most people know what flow is and have had moments of experiencing it, uh, and so one of the first things we come up with is, okay, so that's the flow state, the experience of being fully engaged in the moment, where time stands still, and it- I feel fully present, all that stuff, which is great. Um, where does that happen? So first of all, we're saying it happens in this place called the flow world. So flow occurs when I'm fully in the present moment, and that's really where the flow world is existing. So let's go where flow can be found, saying once we posit the flow world is the place where you might enter the flow state, and then on the flow state that we originally defined, there's this thing called the flow channel, which is where the task at hand and my skill set are close.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So my, my capacity and what the, the task demands of me are really close. I'm neither over skilled, and then I get bored, or I'm neither under skilled, and then I get anxious, 'cause-
- CWChris Williamson
This sort of proximate zone of development type stuff?
- DEDave Evans
Yeah, I'm pr- I'm, I'm, I'm right at my skill level.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DEDave Evans
So the situation is demanding the most of me. So-- and what we notice about... And that's fine. We call that apex flow, which is where, you know, I'm really right on the ragged edge of my capability, and the reason I can drop into flow in that situation is the circumstance, i.e., the task, the-
- CWChris Williamson
I need to wrangle all of my capacity to focus.
- DEDave Evans
It takes all of me.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep. Yep, yep, yep.
- DEDave Evans
So literally, the way I put that is, I have now delegated responsibility for my degree of engagement in life to the quality of the task.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep, yep.
- DEDave Evans
I need to find some task-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep
- DEDave Evans
... that will so demand of me-... my attention that I finally become fully present.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep, yep. Like simply put-
- DEDave Evans
Which means it's the task's job for me to be present, not my job.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the flow equivalent of putting your meaning and impact.
- DEDave Evans
Bingo! So what I really want to learn how to do, we call it simple flow, is I can choose to be fully attentive. I've got to chop these damn onions to make the soup, and then what I really, really get onto is, is the dinner when the people come over at seven o'clock. So it's five thirty now, I've got to get the soup going. You know, multitask, put on a Chris Williamson, you know, YouTube, while I'm listening, do four things to make the most of it, as opposed to like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's go all the way in on the onion chopping.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, I thought you meant forget the onions and just watch the-
- DEDave Evans
Oh
- CWChris Williamson
... Chris Williamson. It's like-
- DEDave Evans
Well, that would, that-
- CWChris Williamson
That's fine. That-
- DEDave Evans
That'd be a higher level flow, but you know-
- CWChris Williamson
Right
- DEDave Evans
... I got to, I got to get the onions done. I'm so sorry.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- DEDave Evans
So, um, so if I can fall all the way in, like, look, it's going to be ten minutes. You know, I'm going to do this in, you know, a nice Zen kind of way. I'm going to really appreciate the knife. I'm going to actually feel the experience of... I, I can choose to go all in, even if my skill set far exceeds it. I can just choose to be fully present to what I'm doing, and that allows me to have this fully engaged, calmly detached experience, which is more alive. I can even try something that's hard for me, and if I really can accept that I might make a mistake, and that's okay, then the anxiety can be dropped. Anxiety is still an elective pain. So I can drop the anxiety, or I can drop the boredom by having the mental discipline of choosing my way into the moment. Now, suddenly the flow channel quadruples in size.
- 57:06 – 1:02:40
Is Multitasking Sabotaging Your Flow?
- CWChris Williamson
So that's lovely. Uh, I think the first thing it makes me think of is whether or not multitasking and the... yeah, the I am going to listen to a podcast at one and a half times speed while I-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... get my walk in, while I check my notes for the upcoming-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... email I've got to do.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that a particularly, uh, kryptonite, uh, additive to try and put into achieving flow? Is that going to contribute to the degradation of flow across the world?
- DEDave Evans
I think so.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
I mean, i- in short, look, I'm not saying never do it, and we do know the truth is, human-- neither humans nor computers actually multitask.
- CWChris Williamson
No, they parallel.
- DEDave Evans
We task switch.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, what people think they mean is parallel processing.
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
What they're actually doing is-
- DEDave Evans
Task switching.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, right.
- DEDave Evans
So getting good at task switching quickly is a performance optimization capability, and in the, in the high-productivity world, that's not a bad skill to have. And I get the feedback loop of I got more done, or I got more from my time, or I got paid higher, or, uh, my PowerPoints were cooler than yours, whatever it is, um, and-
- CWChris Williamson
Or I got done what I needed to get done more quickly-
- DEDave Evans
I got-
- CWChris Williamson
-so that I can then get-
- DEDave Evans
I bought some time back. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep, yep.
- DEDave Evans
So, but again, if I only do that, again-
- CWChris Williamson
In perpetuity
- DEDave Evans
... the flow requires full participation in the-- The reason time stands still and becomes eternal at the-- it go, time elongates, you know, and disappears all at once because I'm so fully present to it, is this full availability and full concentration. If I'm switching constantly, I'm never going to have that full presence. So I do think multitask-- what we call multitasking and flow are simply different states. Now, you might-- somebody might argue, "I can flow by how well I'm multitasking."
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep.
- DEDave Evans
I'm not sure that's actual flow. I think what it is, it's, it's gratifying that I'm being high performant. That's okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DEDave Evans
But if it's, it's the only game you're playing, then you've, you've left flow behind.
- 1:02:40 – 1:09:59
How to Engineer Flow into Your Life
- CWChris Williamson
a nice conception. Okay, what design choices make flow more likely in daily life?
- DEDave Evans
[exhales] Pay attention.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
I mean, just paying attention. So the, um, we talk about mindset a lot. So, the design choice of choosing into the way I'm going to be in a particular situation, you know? So if I'm only-- if I'm in that staff meeting, and I'm only thinking about the next thing, then I've designed my mindset to never be present in the present moment. So, so, but the, the critical design choice is, how do I live in this day? How do I live in this moment? My, my partner, Bill, has a morning practice, and despite being an atheist, he has spiritual practices. Um, one of them, he says two things to himself out loud every single day, uh, while shaving, and he says it's very important that they're out loud.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
I don't shave every day, so I can't do it.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a good justification to shave every day.
- DEDave Evans
There you go. Um, one is: I live in the best of all possible worlds.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
Now, as an, as an existential atheist, he says: "Look, I, I, I can also say I live in the world, I live in the worst world, I live in the only world I notice, but actually, it turns out because bias matters, I want to bias things in my favor. If I live in the best of all possible worlds, my chance of catching good things goes way up because I've pre-biased my attention to positive outcomes."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
Thing one. Thing two: everything I do today, I choose to do. So I announce my agency to myself. Like, why am I going to this darn meeting?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm, mm.
- DEDave Evans
Oh, 'cause I scheduled it. You know, why am I going to the DMV? Because, because I, I chose not to file on time, and so now I'm doing this thing. So I just own my life. So those two-
- CWChris Williamson
Me, it's me, it's me, it's me, it's me.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah, I'm just... I own it, I own it, I own it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
You know, so, you know, out- outing the victim. Um, so that's mindset choice. So the most import-- I think the most important aspect of designing a life that includes these flow experiences is choosing the mindset of the way you live, which is a practice you do every day.
- CWChris Williamson
Both me and my housemate have one day where we stack all of our calls. Mine's a Wednesday, his is a Thursday.
- DEDave Evans
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, my-
- DEDave Evans
We kind of get it done day, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, exactly.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And it, you, you sort of stare at it, and you go, "Okay, today is not going to be deep work, but it's gonna be necessary work," and that's fine. And, and that is a kind of cohesion-
- DEDave Evans
Oh, yeah, yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... all of its own, right?
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um.
- DEDave Evans
Somebody's gotta pick up the dog shit.
- 1:09:59 – 1:19:25
The Biggest Mistakes High Achievers Are Making
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I think one of the areas I really want to get into is the mistakes that high achievers make when it comes to tying meaning to outcomes-
- DEDave Evans
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... and the sort of endless rabbit holes of pursuit-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... and progress.
- DEDave Evans
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
What are the big mistakes that you see hard-charging, high achievers making in your world?
- DEDave Evans
Well, the first one is that we correlate, um, our decision-making with the outcome. So w- w- you know... Okay, let me try it this way. Um, you work hard on real- on something you really care about, and it doesn't work out. Shoot! What's the first question most people ask themselves as soon as something doesn't work out?
- CWChris Williamson
What did I do wrong?
- DEDave Evans
Bingo. Which means... And that, and by the way, questions matter, particularly the questions you empower to judge or direct your life. Be very careful, because all questions have belief systems. If it turns out the life-directing question you're currently suffering has a belief system you don't agree with, you're in trouble. So if the first thing I think after something goes awry is, "What did I do wrong?" There are two assumptions built into that question, both of which I think are dead wrong and are very dangerous. So if the first question after a mistake or a failure is, "What did I do wrong?" What does that question already believe is true?
- CWChris Williamson
You could have done something differently, and you are wrong.
- DEDave Evans
Bingo. It does believe that if I'd done everything right, it would have worked.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DEDave Evans
And that the thing that didn't get done right, which would have caused it to work, was mine.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
Which are both, frankly, incredibly egotistical things. I mean, it's not true if you do it all right, that it'll work, and it's not necessarily your mistake. So a better question than, "What did I do wrong?" Which goes right to, "And if I'd done it right, it would've worked," which is wrong, it's false. What's a better first question after a mistake, after a, a failure?
- CWChris Williamson
Why did this happen?
- DEDave Evans
Just what happened?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
Let's just start with back to reality.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
Radical acceptance. What happened? Now, if it turns out that analysis is, "Oh, yeah, in retrospect, I did. I mailed it in. I didn't do the prep properly. You know, I didn't call ahead. I didn't get the information, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DEDave Evans
... You know, spend any time whatsoever talking to people about what they think about Chris Williamson. I show up here, and I'm, I'm unprepared-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DEDave Evans
... and I shanked it."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
"Shame on me!" Okay, but that's almost never the case.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
When I have debriefed the, "Oh, what did I do wrong?" um, with people over and over again, or the, "It seemed like a good idea at the time, but apparently it wasn't," you know, it turns out your prior self did the best they could. You're just not responsible for the future. So the, back to your originating question: what do high performers do? High performers believe in-... they can create, they can cause outcomes every single time.
- 1:19:25 – 1:25:43
How to Strive Without Missing Your Life
- CWChris Williamson
checkout. Another wing, another-
- DEDave Evans
Sure
- CWChris Williamson
... malignant tumor to this same, [laughing] this same thread that we're on.
- DEDave Evans
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Lots of people become objectively successful and subjectively miserable. They have objectively done the thing. They have achieved success.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Subjectively, it's not there. It doesn't feel like they're there.
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
They know that they've done it, but it doesn't feel like they've touched it.
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you lay that at the feet of?
- DEDave Evans
I wonder if they lost their why on the way. You know, Simon Sinek. Um, because if you got there, and you look-- and it's not just that it's temporary, and now what? But you look back, and it feels like dust in your mouth. Then, were you winning for winning's sake? Um, and that's not very gratifying. So if somewhere along the way, why I care about this, the substance of it, the, the, the relationship of it, the culture creation of it, the whatever, you know, if I lost that, then when I get there, I, I literally won't even know what the heck I'm doing here.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you-
- DEDave Evans
It's a very disorienting experience.
- CWChris Williamson
You talk about post-achievement depression being really common among elites, right?
- DEDave Evans
Yeah. I think sometimes we are-- we have so committed to that achievement that we put all of ourselves into that performance, and we lose the why. You know, um, it's understandable, but it's heartbreaking.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, people love to accomplish and achieve, though. How, how do you think about striving while not missing your life? G- going after it-
- DEDave Evans
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... whilst actually being present at the same time? Because as far as I can see, striving-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... and improving requires a degree of delayed gratification.
- DEDave Evans
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
It, it, it, it needs future planning, which by design takes you out of the moment. It's very difficult to be thinking about the big picture goals in flow, paying attention to the onions that I'm chopping right now. There has to be a good portion of time spent putting off what I want to do now, planning for the future, thinking about tasks, being hypervigilant, and this is the c- sort of perennial challenge of the, the, the personal growther-
- DEDave Evans
Sure
- CWChris Williamson
... that they want to achieve a lot but not miss their life at the same time.
- DEDave Evans
Right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
And sometimes I think those two things do not-- they are oil and water, not always, and maybe less than we might-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... think they are, but there are sacrifices that need to be made-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- 1:25:43 – 1:33:18
Why Community is So Important
- CWChris Williamson
We didn't talk about communities.
- DEDave Evans
So community, big deal, you know. In fact, um, uh, Bob and I-- uh, Bill and I just got to spend a morning with Bob Waldinger, the, you know, the-
- CWChris Williamson
He's great, from the, uh, Harvard Study of-
- DEDave Evans
Harvard Study, yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... Adult Development.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
He's been on the show. He's great.
- DEDave Evans
And, and a Zen man, a lovely guy. So we spent the whole morning all sat around agreeing with each other a lot. It was really a lot of fun.
- CWChris Williamson
Nice.
- DEDave Evans
Um, you know, and that study makes it very clear community is everything. Um, the reason there's a thing called formative community, it's a technical term that we invented, is in the book, um, is that the, um, through this DCI program, this Distinguished Career Institute program that I teach in at Stanford, I'm on my tenth cohort. Um, these really thoughtful people, you know, thirty-five to forty-five of them a year, get thrown together in a room, and then in no time at all, say not only is the community the best part of the program, but I'm having relationships w- with these people like I've never had before in my life.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
And I debrief with them collectively, and I kinda-- and I'll go: "Justify your answer. I, I don't, I'm not buying it." I mean, these, these people formed corporate cultures and have huge professional networks. Most of them are married with happy families, and I say: "How many of you, while you're here, you're getting calls constantly from these huge networks of relationships like, 'Oh, we miss you, please come home?'" 'Cause they're gone for a ye- a whole year at Stanford. Uh, and they go, "Oh, yeah, it's a, it's a din." I kinda go: "And you're telling me that some admissions officer in this program throws you in a room with, with thirty-five yahoos you never met before, and suddenly they're the best friends you ever had? Uh-huh. Justify your answer." And what w- and what that conversation has revealed is what I ended up naming as formative community, which is there are three reasons to gather. One is a social gathering. A social community get together to have a good time, which is lovely, ha-- you know, enjoy being people together. A collaborative community, let's get together and get something done. And getting something done together with another person, you know, is, is, is really wonderful. I mean, go to a start-up, go have military experience. That's a profound experience of being a human being. But there's another kind of gathering, which is we call formative, not just get together to have a good time, get together to get something done, get together to become better together. So if a person is a becoming, is there a place in a conversation I can enter into, where what we're doing here together is we are assisting one another in our becoming, which isn't getting a transaction done, isn't solving a problem? It's allowing one another into the conversation that's growing into the next person I want to become. So that is a gathering of intent, not content. Most of the time, we get together socially around the content of we all like theater, we all like jazz, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So there's this commonality of, of the content of what we're doing. We're getting together to go, you know, work on this food problem or start this company or whatever it might be. So there's the content of our, our collaboration. In a formative community, like, well, you're into climate change, and I'm into Beanie Babies, and, and she's into modern art. "Oh, you can't help me because you don't my- know my thing." No, no, no, I don't need you to know my thing. What I need is for you to be the person who's becoming them, their better selves. I want you to get more in alignment with who you're on the way to becoming, and when that occurs, your psyche, your soul, your consciousness resonates in a way that the content of what you're doing doesn't matter to me, but the intent does. And when I'm with other people who are moving toward that resonance with themselves-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm, mm
- DEDave Evans
... it's harmonic to my own. So you're talking about climate change, and I'm having an [chuckles] idea about oil redistribution. You know, it turns out you being you enables me to be me. So that's what a formative community does, and there's a certain kind of conversation they can have. And so we'll say it's almost impossible to hear yourself by yourself because we're fundamentally social animals. So if there is a place where I can be heard, then I might even tap into hearing my own story well enough that I can grow further into it. So a formative community is a particularly meaning-making experience because it moves me along that becoming pathway more regularly, more reliably, and if we're lucky, more quickly.
- CWChris Williamson
I think this is a important pushback against the solopreneur, degenerate, sigma lone wolf kind of atmosphere that's going on a lot at the moment. I understand why. I understand why it's seductive to go monk mode and recant reliance on anybody and everybody around you.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, as I've got older, it, it's just in- increasingly difficult to tap into that fuel source. Maybe I've just spent that particular thing. I d- I basically extended working from home ten years before COVID and five years after-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... electively. And w- when the pandemic came along, it was brilliant.
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
It was just more of me.
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, put me in, coach.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, yeah-
- DEDave Evans
But it's not a bad thing because, again, back to particularly in the first half of life, those early adult years, what's really going on is you're building an ego.... the first person who really needs to believe that you're okay is you. So if my decision to rely entirely on myself is a, a stringent approach to saying, "I need to get to a place of self-trust-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- DEDave Evans
-and it turns out I can't afford to let that leak off where, oh, it was really, it was really Anne. She really saved my butt" So, you know, but that should be temporary. I should get over it, and now I'm actually free to be part of something bigger than myself.
- 1:33:18 – 1:47:05
The Signals Telling You to Redesign Your Life
- CWChris Williamson
What are the signals that tell you it's time to redesign your life? What would be the things-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... people notice out there in the ether, the little whispers in the back of their mind?
- DEDave Evans
Yeah, you know, um, I talk to people all, particularly in career. Um, I've often come away from the thousands of conversations I've had with people kind of going, you know, very often, it's not so much I've decided it's time for me to leave the work, um, it's that you start noticing the work has left you. Um, very often, I think the signals that change is coming actually kind of feels like an outside in. Um, you know, you go into the office, and nothing happens. You know, you're in that thing that used to be enlivening, and you go, "Oh, apparently it's not" You know, um, and it's almost like noticing yourself having... It's not the inside. Now, I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think the time is up. I think I've maxed out here. I think I need to move on, as opposed to just, like, you know, um, the soundtrack seems to have stopped, and I think the movie might be over.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
So there's an awareness of your experience of something is shifting.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DEDave Evans
Um, Bill, my partner, talks about the time he was in the car. He knows exactly where he was on Highway two eighty when he was driving into Apple, and he suddenly realized, "Oh, I'm done." Now, he spent another year setting up how to quit well, but, you know, but, but, but the job left him right there.
- CWChris Williamson
But I wonder how long before that he'd been turning up to work and just stuff didn't feel as bright as it used to.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah, I don't know. I have to ask him. But the, um, um, I think sometimes these awarenesses can be sudden. Sometimes they kind of grow up on you over time, but that boils down to, you know, kind-- the Socratic thing, you know, um, uh, the unexamined life is not worth living. So if you have an unexamined life, um, then awareness of this might come slow. It'll have to be dramatic.
- CWChris Williamson
I think another challenge that people face is if you are a hard-charging, high-achiever person, you're probably very good at going, "Shut up, emotions," and just continuing to push through-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... whatever it is, including the emotion of boredom, of disquiet, of discomfort-
- DEDave Evans
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, low color, low engagement, lack of aliveness. I mean, that's just, that's just mere resistance.
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Allow me to move through it, and the more you've hypertrophied the allow me to move through it muscle, the longer sometimes it can take, I think, for people to realize, "Oh, this is not a right fit for me."
- DEDave Evans
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And you see, I've seen this in every industry I've been in, people who've outstayed their aliveness-
- DEDave Evans
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... by decades because th- they either have this super hypertrophied, delayed gratification, but they're, they're a world champion at the marshmallow test.
- DEDave Evans
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Or, [chuckles] um, or they do not have the-- they, they haven't done the self-reflection to, to actually be able to sort of feel it.
- DEDave Evans
Yeah, I've long said, um, most people's besetting sin is not some shadow, dark side, evil thing leaking its way out yet again. It's the over-functioning strength.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, yes, yes.
- DEDave Evans
There is absolutely-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, yeah
- DEDave Evans
... absolutely too much of a good thing.
- CWChris Williamson
That is so good. Yeah, that's better.
- DEDave Evans
You know, I'm too helpful, I'm too efficient, I'm too committed, you know, and, I, you know, I'm not a stoic, but they had some good ideas, and the- when they say moderation in all things, they don't sound like, well, the two littles-... crummy and the too much is, uh, so let's go with the middle. What they're really saying is, a- it's actually a thoughtful position, that the recognition of a, a good thing over-experienced, over-indulged upon, not just, you know, sugar, but, you know, productivity, you know, is not a good thing.
- 1:47:05 – 1:48:07
Where to Find Dave
- CWChris Williamson
Dave Evans, ladies and gentlemen. Dave, you're fantastic. You're really, really great. I'm very glad that I stumbled upon you.
- DEDave Evans
I'm really, really glad you did, too. This has been great.
- CWChris Williamson
Where should people go to keep up to date with everything that you're doing?
- DEDave Evans
Oh, um, we've got a website. It's Designing Your Life, so it's designingyour.life. Pretty simple. Um, and that'll take you to lots of places. We've got a newsletter out now, a newsletter called Fully Alive by Design. Uh, you can get it weekly in your, in your mailbox, so the, the website will invite you to that. Um, and you know, hey, a week from today, you could buy the book. That'd be a great idea.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, it'll be out by the time that this goes out, so people can go and buy it. And what's that called?
- DEDave Evans
It's called How to Live a Meaningful Life: Using Design Thinking to Unlock Joy Flow-- Purpose, Flow, and Joy Every Day.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you. Dave, I appreciate you. Until next time.
- DEDave Evans
Okay. I'll call you on that. [upbeat music]
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you very much for tuning in. Congratulations for making it to the end of an entire episode. Uh, another one that I think you'll enjoy is right here.
Episode duration: 1:48:08
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